(CNN) – As he waited with parents who feared that their kids were among the 20 children killed at a Connecticut elementary school on Friday, Rabbi Shaul Praver said the main thing he could do for parents was to merely be present.

“It’s a terrible thing, families waiting to find out if their children made it out alive,” said Praver, who leads a synagogue in Newtown, Connecticut, and was among nine clergy gathered with parents at a firehouse near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting occurred.

“They’re going to need a lot of help,” Praver said of those who are close to the dead.

From the first moments after Friday’s massacre, which also left six adults and the shooter dead, religious leaders were among the first people to whom worried and grieving families turned for help.

Over the weekend, countless more Americans will look to clergy as they struggle to process a tragedy in which so many of the victims were children.

“Every single person who is watching the news today is asking ‘Where is God when this happens?’” says Max Lucado, a prominent Christian pastor and author based in San Antonio.

Lucado says that pastors everywhere will be scrapping their scheduled Sunday sermons to address the massacre.

“You have to address it - you have to turn everything you had planned upside down on Friday because that’s where people’s hearts are,” Lucado says.

“The challenge here is to avoid the extremes – those who say there are easy answers and those who say there are no answers.”

Indeed, many religious leaders on Friday stressed that the important thing is for clergy to support those who are suffering, not to rush into theological questions. A University of Connecticut professor on Friday hung up the phone when asked to discuss religious responses to suffering, saying, “This is an immense tragedy, and you want an academic speculating on the problem of evil?”

“There is no good answer at that time that anyone can hear and comprehend and take in,” said Ian T. Douglas, the bishop for the Episcopal diocese of Connecticut, referring to counseling family and friends of the dead. “They’re crying out from a place of deep pain.”

Praver, the rabbi, will join a memorial service Friday night at Newtown’s St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church.

“We’re going to have a moment of prayer for the victims,” Praver said of the service. “We cannot let it crush our spirit and we march on.”

Some national religious groups are also sending staff to Newtown, with 10 chaplains dispatched from the North Carolina-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association on Friday.

Public officials including President Obama, meanwhile, turned to the Bible in responding to the shooting. “In the words of Scripture, 'heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds,' ” Obama said from the White House, citing the book of Psalms.

Some religious leaders argue that modern American life insulates much of the nation from the kind of senseless death and suffering that plagues much of the world every day.

“Most of the world, for most of the world’s history, has known tragedy and trauma in abundance,” wrote Rob Brendle, a Colorado pastor, in a commentary for CNN’s Belief Blog after this summer’s deadly shooting in Aurora, Colorado, which left 12 dead.

“You don’t get nearly the same consternation in Burundi or Burma, because suffering is normal to there,” wrote Brendle, who pastored congregants after a deadly shooting at his church five years ago. “For us, though, God has become anesthetist-in-chief. To believe in him is to be excused from bad things.”

Lucado said there was an eerie irony for the Connecticut tragedy coming just before Christmas, noting the Bible says that Jesus Christ’s birth was followed by an order from King Herod to slay boys under 2 in the Roman city of Bethlehem.

“The Christmas story is that Jesus was born into a dark and impoverished world,” Lucado says. “His survival was surrounded by violence. The real Christmas story was pretty rough.”

Many religious leaders framed Friday’s shooting as evidence for evil in the world and for human free will in the face of a sovereign God.

“The Bible tells us the human heart is ‘wicked’ and ‘who can know it?’” the Rev. Franklin Graham said in a statement about the massacre. “My heart aches for the victims, their families and the entire community.”

Many religious leaders also said that such tragedies are a good time for lay people to express doubts about God – or anger.

“This is a time to go deep and pray,” says Lucado. “If you have a problem with God, shake a fist or two at him. If he’s God, he’s going to answer. And if he’s in control, he’ll find a way to let you know.

soundoff(9,195 Responses)

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November 25, 2013 at 5:27 am |

Rochelle Tinsley

God gave man and woman life and free will to use for good or bad. He had his laws, ten of them, etched in stone to be passed down through the generations. He knew that bad things would happen to good people. Faith and prayer, belief.....

June 5, 2013 at 2:00 pm |

Mema

I ask this question all the time! Actually my whole life! Then I learned something along the way. Humans do not want God to interfere. It is like a child that says, I can do it myself, but I still have to wonder, where were the guardian angels? What about little warning voices to the parents, Your Child is in danger don't let them go to school, today! Over and over we hear of how heavenly divine beings are here to help us and protect us, yet, I do not see it. I refuse to allow the words and actions of men to devalue GOD! Perhaps we have been taught wrong or perhaps God is sitting back and waiting for humanity to call him for help, once more. I do not know the answers but I will not release my faith or belief in GOD! I do wish he would hurry up and get here, though. We desperately need him. Evil is running rampant...

May 19, 2013 at 10:48 am |

Choir Loft

Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. I may also be so bold as to say that all your questions will be answered – here and now, not bye and bye.
***
My own kids were in trouble for their lives once and Our Lord sent warning to me to get them out of it. The problem with America today is that we've told Jesus and His old man to hit the road, leave us alone, and don't tell us how to live. And so He has.
and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

May 30, 2013 at 11:54 am |

RichardSRussell

"Where's God?"

Same place as always — not here.

May 12, 2013 at 12:58 pm |

faith

to use pain as an argument to prove god doesn't exist, according to nazi god-hating fascist logic, must fail. for they conclude that the alleged joy christians' experience is not persuasive that he does exist.

May 11, 2013 at 3:15 pm |

faith

if you and i obey his commands, children will not be massacred. who is responsible for your behavior?

May 11, 2013 at 3:19 pm |

..,

Faith, that's bullshit and you know it.

May 11, 2013 at 3:23 pm |

faith

to my innocent, sincere christian brothers and sisters,
keep in mind, the "reasons" proffered by Nazi god hating fascist liars for not accepting the existence of god have nothing, not a thing, to do with their views on Christ.
they believe and tremble, too.
they love darkness more than light. they love some thing(s) more than god.
i have enough experience ministering to the demon possessed to discern who is seeking answers to their questions and who has lost control

May 11, 2013 at 3:31 pm |

faith

he sends rain on his kids

joni eareckson tada says pain is god's choicest tool

May 11, 2013 at 3:06 pm |

faith

who simply states this?

Dave
Dan, if someone was in the process of kidnapping your children and I was present and able to stop the perpetrator, however, decided that I'm disapointed with you therefore did nothing to prevent the kidnapping would I not bear a portion of the blame? Simply stating that God doesn't cause evil to take place, rather allows it to happen for whatever reason doesn't exonerate God either.

drothy does. so?

May 11, 2013 at 3:01 pm |

faith

"decided that I'm disapointed with you therefore did nothing to prevent the kidnapping"

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.